Tag: David Marshall Grant

Latest News About Writers Who Are Doing Better Than We Are

David Marshall Grant (SMASH ) has written the pilot for a new CBS drama series about an ex-GI cop who uses counter-insurgency tactics to try and control gang violence. (Ooh, waterboarding the Crips? Not smart, ex-GI hero dood. Not smart at all.)

Peter Murrieta (WIZARDS OF WAVERLY PLACE) is writing the pilot for an unnamed NBC comedy pilot about a stand-up comedian we’ve never heard of. (“About” as in based on his life and act, and starring him. How interested in the lives of stand-up comedians are you, really? We admit that when it comes to that particular subject we’re in the negative zone.)

Owen Ellickson (THE OFFICE) is adapting a non-fiction book by Bruce Feiler for a CBS comedy pilot called SECRETS OF HAPPY FAMILIES. (Ooh, isn’t that the clever title? Can’tcha just taste that delicious irony oozing off the printed page and coating our big screen TVs with…you know.)

Dan Lagana (ZACH STONE IS GONNA BE FAMOUS) is writing the pilot for another CBS comedy pilot, this one about a newly married couple who are raising both a toddler and a teen. (Simultaneously! Wowza! That’s gonna send the CBS demographic spinning – dizzily, we imagine. )

Seth MacFarlane (well-known smug asshat who used to be funny) has sold BORDERTOWN, a new animated series, to Fox. (This one’s supposed to be “a satirical look at America’s cultural shifts through the evolving relationship” between a border patrol agent and his Mexican immigrant neighbor. (Hmm, we’re seriously tempted to start a pool to see who picks the exact date the first irate viewer publicly calls for MacFarlane to be lynched. Any takers?)

“Every hugely successful writer I know simply writes what he or she loves…and has been lucky enough to love the same things the audience does.” (LB)

Zach Braff (yeah, that Zach Braff) is writing the pilot for the ABC sitcom GARAGE BAR, about a group of friends dealing with the celebrity of one of them, who has become a pop star. (Zach will also direct and serve as E.P. for the series because, hell, he is a pop star of sorts thanks to SCRUBS and GARDEN STATE.))

Gideon Yago (THE NEWSROOM) is writing CITY HALL, an ABC drama about a city’s youthful mayor and her staff. (Gideon will also be an E.P. because he may not be a pop star but nevertheless his credentials are impressive: He wrote for CBA and MTV News and was fired from THE NEWSROOM by pop star Aaron Sorkin.)

Steve Agee (THE SARAH SILVERMAN PROGRAM) & Rob Schrab (CHILDEN’S HOSPITAL) are writing an “untitled coming-of-age comedy for FX based on Agee’s military school experiences. (No, we don’t usually think of military schools as funny, but the pitch calls this “tonally similar to FREAKS & GEEKS, and a good pitch trumps reality every time.)